


Absolution

by raiast



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bad Dreams, First Kiss, M/M, midnight cuddles, season 2 divergence, set late season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 11:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21493276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiast/pseuds/raiast
Summary: When Will wakes up from a surprisingly unsettling dream, there's only one place he can go to ease the ache inside him.orThe one where Will stops being a dumbass and starts being honest with himself.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 411
Collections: Wendigo & Stag





	Absolution

_Will watched from the sidelines as Hannibal was smothered into the ground, pinned down by the weight of Jack’s knee planted in the middle of his back. Distantly, he was aware of the rest of the FBI team filing in, one announcing the warrant they held for search and seizure as the rest began to ransack Hannibal’s beautiful home, all while Jack’s baritone voice droned on about Miranda Rights._

_Will couldn’t focus on anything but Hannibal, the way his face showed more emotion than Will had ever seen at any given point in time. His amber eyes drilled through Will, filled with blatant shock and betrayal. Will was pretty sure he saw a deep sadness in the creases around Hannibal’s mouth._

_“He doesn’t want to see you,” Jack told Will, stepping in front of his path._

_Strange, how much that hurt Will to hear._

_“I don’t care. I need to see it.”_

_Will pushed past Jack, through the doors that led to a room specifically designed to contain those as dangerous as Hannibal. No one seemed to understand the way that Will did that no one was as dangerous as Hannibal._

_He stood in the center of his cage, walled into half of the room by a thick layer of Plexiglas. Will approached the clear wall, could see that though Hannibal’s eyes were closed, his nostrils flared as Will’s scent was carried to him through the holes in the wall. He watched Hannibal, still and stoic, hands clasped behind his back, and wondered where he was in his Memory Palace._

_Wrong, he thought all at once, and the notion struck him like a freight train, made his stomach turn. This is wrong. Hannibal doesn’t belong here, caged like an animal. This shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have done this._

_Will opened his mouth to scream, to cry, to apologize, to beg Hannibal to look at him one more time, but no sound came out._

Hannibal knew he was there - he had to. In all likelihood, he heard Will’s clumsy attempts at picking the man’s lock. At the very least he heard the tread of Will’s steps through the house, up the stairs - Will hadn’t been to the second level of Hannibal’s home often enough to be familiar with the spots that creaked and groaned when weight was applied. If nothing else, his bedroom door opening in the middle of the night, no matter how quietly Will attempted to do so, would certainly have a predator like Hannibal at immediate awareness.

But the man lay in his bed, still but for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. His thick curtains were open halfway, allowing cold moonlight to spill into the room, across Hannibal’s side of the bed. Will could see that Hannibal’s face was lax, his soft hair spilling carelessly over his forehead. Will took a few slow steps closer, eyeing the open curtains, the position of the man’s arms beneath a sheet too carefully arranged to have been done so in the throes of sleep. He approached the empty side of the bed.

“It’s me,” he announced softly, though at this range Hannibal could probably smell him - what trace of his cologne that still lingered from earlier in the day, the sour scent of the sweat that had since dried to his skin, whatever else it was that Hannibal smelled and associated with Will. “Don’t stab me,” he entreated as he pulled back the blankets and clambered carefully into the bed.

Will settled toward the center of the bed, stretched out on his side facing Hannibal. After another moment of stillness, the doctor shifted, his arm slipping from under the sheets. Will could see the glint of moonlight that struck the blade as Hannibal reached over to abandon the harpy knife on top of his nightstand. Then he turned onto his side to face Will and opened his eyes.

He had shifted his weight closer to the center as he turned, and Will could feel the blazing heat of his body trapped beneath the sheets with them, between them, beckoning him closer. The woody spice of Hannibal’s scent surrounded him entirely.

He didn’t ask what the Hell Will thought he was doing, and Will didn’t apologize for barging in on him in the middle of the night. 

He let his eyes roam over the cannibal’s face, turned away from the moonlight now but still mostly visible to Will as he adjusted to the darkness. He traced his gaze over every inch of Hannibal that his fingers longed to touch - his sculpted cheekbones and sharp chin, the perfect cupid’s bow curve of his top lip, and the plush lower one that practically begged to be sucked on, nibbled at. He met Hannibal’s eyes, and the phantom heaviness and heartache that had formed with his dream and carried through the waking world until that moment cracked and shattered as Hannibal returned his gaze.

“I had a bad dream,” Will announced at last, his voice a soft croak as he whispered the words.

Hannibal studied Will for a moment, letting the silence build between them once more. “You have been plagued with nightmares as long as I’ve known you,” Hannibal pointed out softly. “They’ve never pushed you into my bed before now.”

Will struggled to swallow around the lump that had formed so suddenly in his throat. His eyes stung, burned in that way they did in the midst of a staring contest when they became too dry and you knew that closing them was not an option. If he closed them, the tears barely held at bay would surely fall.

“This one was prophetic.”

He didn’t explain what he meant by that and Hannibal didn’t ask him to.

“I’m going to ask you something. I would really appreciate a straightforward answer. None of your cryptic workarounds or metaphors, no stepping into therapist mode and turning the question back on me, alright?” Will paused, and when Hannibal did not protest his conditions, he continued. “You did all of this to make me see myself, accept myself. You said you want to be my friend.”

Hannibal gave a nod, must have sensed that Will had more to say, because he remained silent.

“Do you want more than that?”

The doctor respected his wishes and did not skirt around his answer. “Yes.”

Will let out a shaky breath, unaware of how much he had ached for that response until he received it. He shifted his weight forward, closing the scant distance between them. Hannibal did not react when he tilted his head closer and pressed their lips together in a chaste kiss. He shifted his hand to rest upon Hannibal’s hip; a shiver ran through him as his fingers slid across the impossibly soft material of Hannibal’s pajamas, pushed him right up to Hannibal’s broad chest.

“Kiss me,” Will demanded softly against his mouth, and Hannibal did.

He raised his hand to slide along Will’s jaw, angling his face and slotting their lips together once more. It was a soft, gentle kiss, but Will could still feel the desperate urgency behind it. When he parted his lips to take in a shuddering breath, Hannibal did what he always did best and invaded him. His tongue slid between Will’s lips, licked across his teeth and then delved further in to greet Will’s own with a tender caress.

He could not say that Hannibal tasted like anything specifically. All that he could think about was how _right_ it felt to lie in this killer’s arms, and what a damned fool he’d been to ever deny that this was exactly where he needed to be. Where he belonged.

They did not pull away from each other when the kiss ended, merely froze exactly how they were, sharing a shaky breath between them, too close together to even look at one another properly. Hannibal’s hand had moved from Will’s jaw to skirt through his curls; Will’s was still half-curled around Hannibal’s sharp hip bone, his other wedged between his body and the mattress.

“I’ve been lying,” Will admitted between one breath and the next. “To you. To Jack. To myself most of all.”

“You’ve been working with Jack to gather evidence against me.”

Even as he spoke the words, hit the nail right on the goddamn head as he always did, Will knew that what Hannibal was voicing was his own estimation, rather than an absolute fact. 

With his eyes closed, it was too easy to see the version of Hannibal from his dream, pinned down to the ground and gazing up at him, heartbroken.

“If you even suspected, why show me everything you did?”

“I wanted very desperately to believe it was not so,” Hannibal explained - was Will imagining the sadness in his voice? “I willfully blinded myself, allowed you to know me, _see_ me, in the hope that you were being honest, because the alternative was too agonizing to consider.”

His stomach gave a sick twist, that hollow ache in his chest returning full force. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Will could feel the prick of tears invading them, threatening to spill forth. “Can I kiss you again?”

“Have you finally stopped lying Will? To yourself, at least, if not to me?”

“Now that I know the truth, I don’t know if I could continue with the charade,” Will admitted softly. “Even if I wanted to.”

The tears spilled hot down Will’s cheeks when Hannibal pressed forward to kiss him again, slid along his skin in tracks that bisected their mouths, sharpened their kiss with the taste of salt and sorrow.

Will thought it tasted like forgiveness.


End file.
